Fees and costs have fallen for most MySuper funds.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority estimates 8.1 million super members (56 per cent of member accounts) have experienced a drop in disclosed total fees over the past year.

The total estimated annual savings to members is $210 million.

Twenty-eight MySuper products have closed since APRA released its first ‘heatmap’ assessment in 2019. As a result, 1.5 million member accounts, containing $51.6 billion in member benefits, have been transferred to other products.

1. About 800,000 fund member accounts remain in underperforming products, which APRA describes as “significantly poor” compared to the last twelve months. However, in what could be described as ‘better’ news, there are fewer accounts in this underperforming category … that’s 350,000 fewer members than in 2021.
2. Most superannuation funds posted negative growth over the past three years across one or more of APRA’s sustainability metrics.

The Energy Industries Superannuation Scheme was assessed as administering Australia’s worst default superannuation product this year.

EISS was among the six funds delivering “significantly poor” investment returns, underperforming its bespoke annual net return benchmark by 1.49 percentage points. It’s reported that EISS will merge with Cbus next year.

The other underperformers were Colonial First State’s FirstChoice super product, BT Super, Westpac Group’s staff superannuation fund, Commonwealth Essential Super and AMG MySuper.

The APRA test examined the performance of default superannuation products over eight years. Funds that delivered returns more than 0.5 percentage points below their net return benchmark failed. Five funds failed to clear their respective benchmarks this year.

APRA Deputy Chair Margaret Cole urged the funds to consider directing their members to better alternatives.

“There are still hundreds of thousands of members in funds with sub-par investment performance, and the industry has serious sustainability issues to address.

“APRA expects that trustees with underperforming products will consider options to transfer members or otherwise restructure their businesses, particularly where sustainability pressures are significant,” Ms Cole said.